Nihilus Mothership

Ships on the scale of the Nihilus have been with the Empire since it's inception. They have remained a mainstay of Imperial expansion as, hopeful for a new beginning beyond the blasted horizon, whole cities of settlers journey from their time-worn homesteads to try their luck on infant worlds. The Nihilus represents the largest ship of it's kind in the history of the Empire, capable of functioning as a mobile citadel for hundreds or thousands of smaller ships, in addition to fielding powerful armaments. Named for famous Imperial Councilor C'tan under his old alias of Nihilus, this class of Mothership is rare but devastating.

Service & Requisition
While carriers have long been used by the Terran Empire, as well as the defunct Systems Alliance and rebellious Terran Federation, humanity never attempted one on this scale. The first of it's kind, though not the last, the Nihilus-class deserved a new classification beyond carrier, and so was named the first human Mothership. Capable of fielding over two-thousand strike craft, and capable of docking entire cruisers within it's hull for repair and rearmament, the Nihilus is a massive mobile fortress.

At over five kilometers long, and boasting enough weaponry to level a planet's surface, this vessel would be capable of acting as a forward attack spearhead. However, it is almost never used in this capacity, as it is even more useful as a command craft positioned at the center of a fleet. Aside from the two-thousand or so strike craft (fighters, bombers, etc.) that rest inside the beast; corvettes, frigates, destroyers, and even cruisers can dock inside for repair. This makes the Nihilus capable of resupplying a fleet mid-battle and extends the usefulness of a single armada several times over.

The Nihilus is especially impervious to assaults from small, fast ships as it bristles with point-defense weaponry designed specifically to shoot such agile vessels out of the sky. Add to this the four massive cutting beams which give it the capability to literally slice a battleship in half, and you realize the poor decision-making that would have to go into a plan to attack a Nihilus head-on.

Nihilus-class Motherships are most certainly not available to the general public, but can be purchased by members of the Nobility at a rate of Φ650,000,000,000 - a significant amount of aurum. A minimum rank of Archduke is required to request the vessel from Imperial High Command.

Statistics
Cost: Φ650,000,000,000

Length: 5509 meters

Detailed Crew: 90 Bridge Officers, 450 Staff Officers, 1000 Enlisted, 2000 Pilots, 900 General Crew, 750 Technicians (total 5200 appx.)

Weaponry: Forty Inferno-class 50MW tachyon assault-burst cannons, twenty Gladius-class heavy tritium-cobalt composite missile launchers, four Eviscerator-class 250MW composite beam cutting lasers (two port, two starboard)

Top Impulse Speed: 0.05 Warp / 33,400,000 mph